sexuality-space: Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality and the Hygienic Imagination by Sheila Cavanagh (2010) University of Toronto Press Based on 100 interviews with queer, trans and intersex people, this book looks at the politicization of public bathrooms: from the campaigns for…

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST, PHOTOGRAPHER & WRITER, KAMEELAH RASHEED
Today Iâ€™m really happy to bring you this interview with artist, documentary photographer, writer and youth educator,Â Kameelah Rasheed. Along with participating in several groups exhibitions across the US and having her photography and writing featured in a number of print and online publications, Kameelah is also the co-founder ofÂ Mambu Badu, a photography collective for emerging female photographers of African descent.
Here, Kameelah discusses her ambitions, the challenge of perfectionism and the power of storytelling. I am super inspired by this driven woman!
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Whatâ€™s your passion?Telling stories through photographs â€¦ and helping others find an opportunity to tell their stories. I am a curious lady. I am passionate about uncovering the intricacies of my life and the life of others. Â Â
Also, I love reading, digging through archives, finding obscure stories, and nature walks.
What inspires you to do the work you do?When I was younger, I was a nerd. Actually, I still am. But when I was younger, I was an unconfident nerd and would get lost in my own stories that Iâ€™d never share. For me storytelling â€“ democratic, open, love-inspired storytelling â€“ is about providing a space for so-called â€œoutcastsâ€ to share. And beyond â€œprovidingâ€ a space, nurturing an environment where all stories are considered valuable. I am in the community of storytelling because everyone has a story, but unfortunately not everyone has a chance to tell their story. I like photographs because they tell a story, but also leave a space for the audience to have a dialogue â€“ to recreate an entirely new narrative based on the trajectory of their own experiences.
What has been your greatest obstacle/challenge?Perfectionism. I hold myself to unusually high standards which means sometimes itâ€™s hard for me to get work done or I am constantly wondering why I am not â€œbetter.â€ I am a trained historian and high school teacher with a public policy background who writes and photographs. I donâ€™t have formal training in the arts or writing and as such sometimes I see gaps in my work â€“ technical (how do I get the perfect lighting?) and professional (how do I write an artist statement?!) â€“ that overwhelm me at times.Â How have you dealt with/overcome it?Prayer, sabr (patience), and confidence. I am starting to believe that I am good at what I do. Confidence is magical and restorative. When I started believing that I was good at my craft, even with incomprehensible space to grow, I began to take more risks to push my work, to be critiqued, and to just be out there.Â
A special friend also sent me this video â€“ Ira Glass on Storytelling:
â€œAnd the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasnâ€™t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short, you know, and some of us can admit that to ourselves and some of us are a little less able to admit that to ourselves â€¦ Everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if youâ€™re going through it right now, if youâ€™re just getting out of that phase or if youâ€™re just starting off and youâ€™re entering into that phase, youâ€™ve got to know itâ€™s totally normal and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.â€
What has your greatest achievement been?I am not sure if Iâ€™ve had it yet, but if I had to pick, Iâ€™d say having my photographs and writing published as well as exhibited while balancing an 80-hour-a-week job as a high school teacher in Brooklyn. Somehow I am finding time to work on my craft and I thank God that Iâ€™ve had the opportunity to find a balance between my passions of teaching and storytelling.Â Where will you be in 10 years?InshaAllah, alive. To be honest, I am not sure where I will be. I just know that somehow it will include photography, mobile teaching, libraries and journalism. As I dream, it would look something like documenting syncretic spiritual communities throughout the diaspora, hosting 4 week long mobile arts programs for youth, and building small local libraries. Â
How does Africa inspire you?The first time I went to Africa was also the first time I left the state of California. I lived in Cape Town, South Africa as an exchange student then Johannesburg, South Africa as an Amy Biehl Fulbright Scholar.Â
The one thing (among many) that fascinated me about South Africa was the geography â€“ literally the space and the ways that once-private space is made public, the way that once-non-Black space is reappropriated, and the intricate patterns people form on the streets while queueing for taxis or selling fruits. Some people say it is chaotic but there is something beautiful about it. A lot of folks talk about the overt beauty of Africa â€“ the faces, the animals, the colors; however, I am more inspired and intrigued by finding the beauty in the seemingly chaotic and banal. I continue to look for that which goes unnoticed and disregarded.Â
Anything else youâ€™d like to share?I am really grateful for life.Â
Andâ€¦I am looking to collaborate across borders (imagined or otherwise) and genres.Â
Anything we should look out for in the coming weeks/months/year?
My essay, â€œLines of Bad Grammarâ€ is published in the bookÂ I Speak for Myself: Â American Women on Being Muslim,Â which will be released on May 2nd. Â
I am heading to Johannesburg and Durban in late April to work on a photography project around spatial politics and youth.Â
Wrapping up a text-based project around theÂ commodification of virginity.Â
I am a co-founder ofÂ Mambu Badu, a photography collective that seeks to find, expose, and nurture emerging female photographers of African descent. Our PDF magazine will be launched in April and our physical exhibit will open in the Washington, D.C. in late summer.Â
Interning forÂ Liberator MagazineÂ and I am organizing interviews with amazing artists based in NY.Â
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All images copyright and courtesy of Kameelah Rasheed. Except for bottom on-set photo from the film,Â Black Swan Theory, all photographs taken in Johannesburg

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â€œIn the digital realm, there is infinite space, but somehow this hasnâ€™t resulted in a flowering of long-form content,â€ Mr. Ratliff said. He had long considered building a Web site that would be more hospitable to long articles, but had also been spending a fair amount of time on his subway commute reading those pieces on his iPhone.
The men called Jefferson Rabb, a programmer and Web designer known for building remarkable sites for books. In bars up and down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the three talked about whether there was a way to use these devices to make the Web a friend, not an enemy, of the articles they liked to work on and read.
And, in what may be the first tangible result of journalists gathered in a bar to complain about the state of reading, they did something beyond ordering another round.
The result is The Atavist, a tiny curio of a business that looks for new ways to present long-form content for the digital age. All the richness of the Web â€” links to more information, videos, casts of characters â€” is right there in an app displaying an article, but with a swipe of the finger, the presentation reverts to clean text that can be scrolled by merely tilting the device.
â€œWe wanted to build something that people would pay for,â€ said Mr. Thompson, who has since switched to being a senior editor of The New Yorker and has had to pull back to consulting for the project.
â€œThe Web is good at creating short and snappy bits of information, but not so much when it comes to long-form, edited, fact-and-spell-checked work.â€
Readers who buy an article from The Atavist and read it on an iPad â€” there are also less media-rich versions for the Kindle and the Nook â€” could begin reading the piece at home and then when driving to work, toggle to an audio version. In each item, there is a timeline navigation that seems natural and simple, and a place for comments that mimics the notes that people put in the margins of complicated, interesting pieces.

The AtavistÂ follows Long Reads, Give Me Something To Read, and Longform.org in finding a place for longer journalism on the Web. The Atlantic Tumblr is especially happy: most of us have a special soft spot for articles longer than, yâ€™know, five tweets.
Read the rest at the New York Times.

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